A prayer for every person who is devoted to social change that leads to a more just and humane world… May each one of us strengthen or develop our capacities to address tensions and conflict, receive and give feedback, and learn and grow from our encounters… may we stay focused on the goals of change for the greatest good and those most vulnerable, as we dismantle patterns of oppression and embrace healthy patterns of mutual relationships.

]]>http://easilyamazed.com/2018/may-we-dismantle-oppressive-behaviors-and-embrace-mutuality/feed/0I Promise School – Thank You Lebron Jameshttp://easilyamazed.com/2018/i-promise-school-thank-you-lebron-james/
http://easilyamazed.com/2018/i-promise-school-thank-you-lebron-james/#respondWed, 01 Aug 2018 02:24:46 +0000http://easilyamazed.com/?p=2507May this school be a place where children and their whole families can learn, flourish, inspire and grow into their full potential with the care and support of community.

]]>http://easilyamazed.com/2018/i-promise-school-thank-you-lebron-james/feed/0Looking at Radical Municipalismhttp://easilyamazed.com/2018/looking-at-radical-municipalism/
http://easilyamazed.com/2018/looking-at-radical-municipalism/#respondSat, 28 Jul 2018 14:17:15 +0000http://easilyamazed.com/?p=2515I found inspiration in this article: How radical municipalism can go beyond the local. I recommend reading the whole piece, some clips below.

“In Seattle, the city council passed a law that would tax big companies like Amazon—money which would then go into subsidies for affordable housing. In Barcelona, the city is turning AirBnB apartments into social housing. Only local, democratic, and people-based movements can force politicians to bring transnational corporations to task. What we need to do now is learn from each other’s victories and work together to scale them up.

….we can grow our movement through struggle for important expansions of the public sphere (social spending, halting carbon emissions, public transit) and drawdowns on the most socially and ecologically destructive features of the state (the police, the military, prisons, border security, surveillance).

… Non-reformist reforms like nationalized healthcare, job guarantee programs, and public childcare can enable more working-class people to participate in neighborhood organizing and movement work. Putting public funds into cooperative development, social housing, public banking, and participatory budgeting can speed along our transition to a democratic economy.

… The mass organization of community councils, assemblies, tenant unions, labor unions, and cooperatives is what can (through its own growth) force governing elites to make the reforms we need right now, while creating the conditions for a more revolutionary restructuring of society.”

]]>http://easilyamazed.com/2018/looking-at-radical-municipalism/feed/0Processing: Who Does the Heavy Liftinghttp://easilyamazed.com/2018/processing-harsh-realities-and-who-does-the-heavy-lifting/
http://easilyamazed.com/2018/processing-harsh-realities-and-who-does-the-heavy-lifting/#respondSun, 01 Jul 2018 18:32:19 +0000http://easilyamazed.com/?p=2414We sit in the chairs to get educated.

Attentive. Being a good student. Listening for what we can learn.
Giving up a whole day of our busy lives — because we know this is important.

Truths revealed. Layers of our privilege glaring before us, for us to see.
Asked again and again — where is your empathy?
Perhaps some words land in a particular way,
And we allow our hearts to break.
Shame, sorrow, rage, confusion.
We feel the tremble in our own bodies.
How can this be? This is not right.

And then what?
We go back to our homes. Back to our lives.
Perhaps we think about — What can I do? What will I do?
Perhaps we make commitments, tell others to hold us accountable.
We process what we’ve heard.
Perhaps the intensity of listening and actually hearing is too much and we run away,
escape into the comfort of our familiar, into the ease of our peace.

Meanwhile. For those for whom these realities are their every breathing moment reality —
Where is the rest? Where is the escape? Where is the return to “my life”? Who fills in when they need a pause?

The hustle continues. Trying to provide safe spaces for youth continues. Alternatives to the streets, the guns, the violence. Alternatives to the classrooms and the spaces for leisure, where adult and peer eyes look at these teenagers and young people and believe they are lesser, up to no good, not as smart, not on a path to a bright future, believe that their parents don’t care. Hustling to create alternatives to narrow views of what their future could be. Alternatives to always having to live in the hustle.

These leaders are providing opportunities for young people to experience the joys and pleasures that life can offer. The youth have an opportunity to feel someone who is glowing with pride and appreciation for their existence, for the unique humans that they are. The youth feel the hearts of those who believe in them, who sacrifice everything they have towards the hope of their brighter future. Youth get to experience opportunities to learn relevant life skills, to grow networks of people who want to lift one another up. They provide space for laughing. Dancing. Playing. Smiling.

And then the late night hours, morning news… 12-year-old killed, 18-year-old suffering from gunshot wounds. Futures pierced with the bullets of a moment’s reality. Hope for tomorrow disrupted by the corruption of today.

And again — who is present to deal with the trauma as it is unfolding. Who feels the response-ability, the obligation to be part of the solution. And who sits civilly. In our chairs. Listening. Emotion-filled, but paralyzed in our bodies. How long have we been sitting in our chairs, at our desk, running errands, staying busy… and yet…

Today, July 1st, 2018, in Asheville, North Carolina — People of Color are absolutely disproportionately carrying the weight of leading actual change in this city. They are absolutely doing the majority of the heavy lifting to bring about more safety, fairness, justice and morality in our city. They are doing the physical and emotional labor of caring for one another in a city that is ready and willing to leave people to suffer and even die rather than actually change. They are creating spaces where we — liberal white women, progressive white men, social change oriented white folks — sit civilly, listen, and perhaps even feel. Sometimes we see that we are needed and we step in with them. Usually, if we get involved, we hang around the edges or yell loudly in inappropriate places. There are too few of us who get our hands dirty, follow their lead, and use our own deep listening and discernment to recognize what is helpful and what is more harmful.

Is today the day that one more person sees that our own life and freedom and peace and comfort is actually bound to the life and freedom and peace and comfort of others? Is today the day that more of us feel the obligation to be a part of the solutions instead of sitting by silently, or only speaking up on facebook or twitter or showing up at a rally once every few months?

It is summer time. Violent crime is on the rise in this city. Police officers can harass and beat residents on camera and still be found as innocent. Community leaders are busting their asses to try and create different realities, to try and find solutions, while being the ones leading the efforts to implement those solutions AND educate the rest of us about why what they are doing is essential and necessary. Meanwhile, they work fulltime jobs and care for their own immediate and extended families.

Are we ready to get organized as a city and make significant changes that cultivate greater care and support for one another and assertively address the oppressive and discriminatory systems that are in place?

Those who are vulnerable because of the racist, classist, and oppressive systems that this country is built up need all of us to be involved. Those of us that are privileged, detached from our capacities to empathize and connect with a greater whole and humanity, our well-being requires our involvement too.

The local is the regional is the national is the global. We can build strong networks of mutual support, resilience, and evolutionary action. There is a unique role that we each have to play. This is a massive puzzle, a huge ecosystem, and each of us have something different to contribute — what’s yours to do? What’s yours to contribute?

For me, in this moment, I had to write. The urgency to want to act and yet not clear what will best serve finds an outlet in words. And with these words is prayer, my own effort to extend my hand in a gesture of “please join me”, a prayer that perhaps one person reading will feel a new spark in their heart that says — “Yes. I’m ready now. Let’s get to work. I will be part of the change.” And prayers for peace to those that are suffering, courage and protection for those that are leading towards different realities, and prayers for the web of our connections to strengthen so that we may be collectively more effective.

And to keep it vulnerable and transparent, today I also sit with my own personal conflict — my emotions are swept by this reality and so I’m not as available to loved ones today in the ways that I had planned to be. I’m preparing for 6 days away with family, and yet I feel that organizing and activation is so needed right now. I’m nervous about the time away when I’ll feel this need to pretend to enjoy this particular holiday season that makes me cringe… and yet the loved ones gathering mean the world to me. And I’m sitting with my white woman tendencies that feel an urgency to act — like I should be doing more now.

Breathing. Prayer. One step at a time. And LISTENING DEEPLY — to the spiritual guidance that I receive and to the guidance from those I am in community with. This is why I invest in growing strong and trusting relationships.

Thank you for reading.

]]>http://easilyamazed.com/2018/processing-harsh-realities-and-who-does-the-heavy-lifting/feed/0It’s Time to Genuinely Protect ALL Childrenhttp://easilyamazed.com/2018/its-time-to-genuinely-protect-all-children/
http://easilyamazed.com/2018/its-time-to-genuinely-protect-all-children/#respondSun, 17 Jun 2018 14:41:51 +0000http://easilyamazed.com/?p=2409On this Father’s Day, I am thinking about the societal role of father’s as protectors. I’m profoundly grateful for all the men who show up to protect, love and nurture young people and I’m grateful to all the mothers, grandmothers, sisters, brothers, and aunties who fill that role when the fathers aren’t able. I’m also feeling how self-centered and self-absorbed many white families are, how often the parenting of children is mostly just one’s own children and how easy it has been, across history in this country, to protect one’s own children and be silent and inactive as other people’s children are given no protection from hatred, violence, and injustice.

Today… like so many other days… my heart is with all the children who are being harmed, violated, tortured, and traumatized, those who have no real protection. Feeling this is hard.

When I saw the video of inside the Walmart detention center and they spoke about how the children are being taught lessons about America, underneath the large mural of Trump, I kept thinking about the many indigenous youth that were stripped from their families and abusively forced to assimilate to white society. Here we are in 2018. Doing the EXACT SAME THING. When I hear about the tent cities being constructed to warehouse these children without their families, I feel the Japanese internment camps. Here we are again, 2018. This is America.

As I hear that 2000 children have been forcibly removed from their families in 6 weeks, I also feel the 10,000 children that are in ADULT prisons in the United States RIGHT NOW and the 3000 youth that have LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE sentences. We have 13 states that have no minimum age for trying a child as an adult. This is America. All children are not valued. They never have been.

On this day, June 17th, 47 years ago in 1971, President Nixon declared the “war on drugs” which increased the prison population by 700%. The millions of children that have been and continue to be terrorized and traumatized by the incarceration of people of color, the incarceration of their family members, is inhumane. This is America. These children’s lives were never valued.

So I continue to wonder and strategize, to feel so many feelings and stay in the pain and motivation — What will it take for us as Americans, and particularly us white women, to finally see the horrors that are imposed upon children of color, families of color, white children living in poverty, and say “no more”? We have opted for hundreds of years to perhaps feel in our hearts that something isn’t right, but to choose to “keep things safe for our own children and families” which means — pretending that lynching is okay, pretending that we don’t see the diffrent quality of education being offered to children of color than to white children, convincing ourselves that there is nothing that we can do or believing that we are too busy and too tired trying to raise our own families to do anything, pretending that the juvinal justice system and the criminal justice system is actually serving justice and protecting people of color, pretending or avoiding the fact that immigrant children have been abducted from their parents, or their parents forcefully removed from them, for years. Pretending or avoiding the realities that Native young girls are being raped and violated. And not being concerned that many white boys are suffering from a fierce complex that causes them to brutalize and terrorize other people, feeling superior to other people.

I know that I have not personally done anything harmful to these millions of children that are being tortured and abused around the world, actions inspired by Capitalistic, White Supremacy, Patriarchical motives that are often justified by Christian beliefs. However, I do feel that the blood is on my hands. I wake up with this feeling daily. If I am not actively working to face the cruelty that has been present since the beginning of my country and doing what I can to change the reality here, my conscience does not rest.

It will take us coming together and acting in many different ways to address once and for all the horror of who we are as a country. All of us are required, those of humane conscience, the hearts of gold, the people who are genuinely all about freedom, equality, and LOVE. No one can opt out if we genuinely want to create a more humane world. And there are as many ways to participate as there are people, there is no one right strategy. If you’re still reading this, PLEASE don’t hear my words as saying — “you have to act in the ways I act.” That’s not it. But you do have to act — and find the ways that are right for you, for your family, for your abilities, for your current emotional state.

This is not an easy journey. May as many people as possible find the courage to step in, for real. May we be supported by one another as we do so. May we be motivated by, accountable to, and guided by love. May we truly feel our interconnectedness.

And if you feel inspired to do something and you don’t know what to do — one key step is to educate yourself about history. Use google. Understand the patterns that are repeating themselves right now.

]]>http://easilyamazed.com/2018/its-time-to-genuinely-protect-all-children/feed/0What Is Happening to Children at the Border and in the Hands of ICE Agentshttp://easilyamazed.com/2018/what-is-happening-to-children-at-the-border-and-in-the-hands-of-ice-agents/
http://easilyamazed.com/2018/what-is-happening-to-children-at-the-border-and-in-the-hands-of-ice-agents/#respondMon, 28 May 2018 16:38:25 +0000http://easilyamazed.com/?p=2383This morning, the first spacious morning in awhile, I wake with the urgent feeling. I must invest time and energy in understanding what is happening to migrant children and families right now. My feeling is that this moment is like that of early Nazi Germany. Being Jewish, I was taught about the Holocaust at an early age. I’ve often wondered about the days and years leading up to concentration camps. How did it happen? How did so many people sit by and let such horror happen. So today… I will learn more about what I am sitting by and allowing to happen.

My 12-year old friend asked me this morning what I was doing. I said, researching awful things. He couldn’t understand why I would choose to do that. If my heart becomes aware, I feel a responsibility to humanity to face the truth of what is happening and listen deeply for guidance about how I am to respond. I will keep sharing what I’m learning.

Research

May 25, 2018 — There isa new policy being enacted this year to separate children from their families at the border. Some may be arriving to seek legal asylum, some trying to cross the border, but these are young children arriving with family members. MSNBC Chris Hayes reports on this with expert guests. VIDEO HERE. This process includes babies and very young children. In the past, there were children who crossed the border on their own. However, the current policy is for the U.S. government to separate the children from their families, causing significant trauma for these young children who are already in a state of trauma as many are fleeing violence seeking safety (asylum) in the U.S.

“ICE has asked for permission to begin routinely destroying 11 kinds of records, including those related to sexual assaults, solitary confinement and even deaths of people in its custody. Other records subject to destruction include alternatives to detention programs, regular detention monitoring reports, logs about the people detained in ICE facilities, and communications from the public reporting detention abuses. ICE proposed various timelines for the destruction of these records ranging from 20 years for sexual assault and death records to three years for reports about solitary confinement.”

“Keeping these documents available is necessary for the public to understand and fully evaluate the operation of a system that is notorious for inhumane and unconstitutional conditions affecting hundreds of thousands of people every year.”

“Recent reports by advocacy groups document sexual assaults in detention without adequate investigation or remedy, sub-standard medical care, the overuse of solitary confinement as well as threats and physical assault by custody staff. Since October 2016, there have been 10 deaths in immigration detention. Many of the records used in these reports and analyses would not have been made available without sustained public pressure to force ICE to maintain and divulge this information.”

2017 – 40,810 children were referred to ORR from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

2018 (through March) – 21,574 children referrals.

March 2017, ORR had 755 referrals; while in March 2018, ORR had 4,204 referrals.

Facilities

At this time, we have no temporary facilities open at Department of Defense locations. The last one closed in February 2017.

As of March 2018, we are operating one temporary influx facility at a Department of Labor site.

ORR now has its largest permanent shelter capacity at over 9,800 beds, and we continue to maintain the majority of our shelter capacity along the southern border.

In FY 2017, children typically stayed in ORR custody for 51 days and so far in FY 2018 (through March) average length of stay has been 56 days.

Teenagers

83 percent of referrals in FY 2017

87 percent in FY 2018.

“Children who migrate to the U.S. are particularly vulnerable to being exploited by human traffickers en route and at their destination.”

From Custody to Sponsors

2017 – ORR released 93 percent of children to a sponsor.

49 percent to parents

41 percent to close relatives

10 percent to other-than-close relatives or non-relatives.

2018 – ORR have released 90 percent of children to individual sponsors

41 percent were parents

47 percent were close relatives

11 percent were other-than-close relatives or non-relatives

“The report outlines ways that ORR has decreased the ability of potential sponsors to use fraudulent documents during the sponsor assessment process. Which must mean that there was a high degree of fraudulent documents being used by sponsors to acquire children.”

Losing track of at least 1,475 children

“From October to December 2017, ORR attempted to reach 7,635 UAC and their sponsors. Of this number, ORR reached and received agreement to participate in the safety and well-being call from approximately 86 percent of sponsors. From these calls, ORR learned that 6,075 UAC remained with their sponsors. Twenty-eight UAC had run away, five had been removed from the United States, and 52 had relocated to live with a non-sponsor. ORR was unable to determine with certainty the whereabouts of 1,475 UAC.”

Department of Health and Human Services & Office of Refugee Resettlement currently not responsible for children taken into custody and then released to sponsors.

“It has been HHS’s long-standing interpretation of the law that ORR is not legally responsible for children after they are released from ORR care. However, considering the importance of the post-release period, we are taking a fresh look at that question as a matter of both legal interpretation and appropriate policy. Specifically, we are exploring the question of ORR’s responsibilities in relation to children who are released to sponsors, and whether the level of responsibility would differ depending on the child’s relationship to his or her sponsor. Based on what we have learned so far, if ORR were to remain legally obligated for the welfare of UAC after their release to a sponsor, or took on additional protective measures even if not legally obligated, those procedures would require a significant expansion of the current program structure and an increase in resources, and possibly additional legal authorities to further clarify ORR’s role.”

May 15, 2018 Hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee

“Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testifying May 15 before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee where she said evades what the policies are for causing the least amount of trauma for children and admits that more must be done to protect children taken at the border.”

“I couldn’t agree with your concerns more,” Nielsen said. “We owe it to these children to protect them.”

According to the article, HHS operates more than 100 shelters across the nation for children seized at the border.

Video of the hearing: http://launch.newsinc.com/share.html?trackingGroup=93075&siteSection=inform_oembed&videoId=33812458

May 23, 2018 – Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez, a 20 year-old woman from Guatemala was shot & killed by US Border Patrol. NYTimes and CNN report on this. Evidently the story from officials has changed sinced the incident.

“Guatemala condemns violent acts and any other use of excessive force by the Border Patrol. We urge authorities to respect the rights of our citizens, especially their right to live, regardless of their immigration status,” theGuatemala’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

“The Trump administration is now going even further than the Obama administration in its attempts to deter asylum seekers, as it seeks to terrify mothers from coming here with their children. The prosecutions have already started flooding border courts, and this “zero-tolerance” policy has only just begun. Meanwhile the refugee crisis of Central America’s Northern Triangle countries continues apace—16 times the number of people from the region were displaced in 2017 as were in 2011, the the UN refugee agency noted in a recent report. The families have a legal right to seek asylum here—and as devastating as the consequences may be, they will not stop coming. The terror they leave behind is much worse.”

“In early May, Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, said he will take a stricture stance on illegal crossings of the Southern U.S. border, prosecuting 100% of people crossing, and making it an official policy to separate children from their parents. Already, 658 kids in the first 13 days of the programhave been ripped from their families, Customs and Border Protection disclosed in a Senate subcommittee hearing on May 23. (Video of the hearing below)”

“This policy is intended to punish the adults by criminally prosecuting them for entering the country, thereby deterring others from making the journey north. But it does incalculable damage to the children at an already traumatic moment in their lives, often stripping them from their mothers when their mothers are all they have.”

“There’s a real trend towards trying to put all asylum seekers in the same category as gang members even when all this young mother was seeking was to protect these young boys by bringing them to the US.” ~ director of University of Texas’s Immigration Law Clinic

“Time and time again, the women say they only brought their children here to save their lives.”

“Mothers convicted of illegal entry can be sentenced to up to six months in jail and be dealt up to $10,000 in fines, while the youths are shipped off to Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters around the country—and ORR and the US Marshals Service, which prosecutes the mothers, do not communicate, Jennifer Podkul, policy director for Kids in Need of Defense, told me.”

“Even once the parents are out of jail and transferred to immigrant detention centers, they remain divided from their kids—meaning some parents are deported before their children even know it, said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants Rights Project.”

“Already the ORR shelters equipped to house unaccompanied minors—which until now have been children traveling without a parent—are 91 percent full. To quickly make more room, the Trump administration now plans to put kids on military bases—which the Obama administration did in the past with unaccompanied teens. But this setup is only meant for kids 13 and older for temporary emergency stays. And while the vast majority—83 percent last year—of unaccompanied minors entering the country have been older than 13, children traveling with parents tend to be far younger, often babies.”

“These children may have to wait for their parents to get out of detention, or they may seek another adult sponsor already in the US to claim them. But those adults are now more fearful to come forward, since the Trump administration just two weeks ago announced a proposal to collect information on potential sponsors’ immigration status, information that could be used for enforcement purposes. As Carey told me, “It appears we’re setting up a long-term incarceration system for children.”

“While each family makes up a single asylum case when that family is kept together, when parents and children are in different locations different courts handle them.”

“This spells trouble for a legal system already overwhelmed by a backlog of nearly 700,000 cases—and since immigrants don’t have the right to free legal help, we’re likely to see more young children representing themselves in immigration court.”

Video of the Senate hearing to the Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration. NOTE- the presiding Senator is Senator Tillis from North Carolina:
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/tvpra-and-exploited-loopholes-affecting-unaccompanied-alien-children

May 2018 ACLU Report
Looking at 2009-2014

“Children crossing the United States’ southern border are primarily from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Many migrant children from these countries are fleeing gang violence, social unrest, and endemic poverty.”

“Despite binding federal laws and agency policies to protect children at our borders, inadequate enforcement and oversight mechanisms have left this vulnerable group unprotected and without access to justice. A new report by the University of Chicago International Human Rights Clinic reviews one subset of the records—and documents shocking child abuse.”

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has the authority to detain migrant children for a limited period of time to determine whether the child should be transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) or qualifies for immediate removal from the United States.”

“By law, unaccompanied migrant children may only be held in CBP custody for 72 hours and are entitled to various basic protections, including: dignified and respectful treatment; safe, secure and clean facilities; adequate food and drinking water; and proper medical care. Federal law further requires personnel working in federal facilities to report possible child abuse to law enforcement, child protective services, or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).”

“CBP officials have often ignored these legal obligations.”

“The records obtained reflect rampant abuse. Children describe excessive force: being stomped on, punched, kicked, run over with vehicles, tased, and forced to maintain stress positions by CBP officials. Minors also report verbal abuse: being called a “dog,” “piece of crap,” “son of a bitch,” and “prostitute,” and being told they “contaminate this country.” In complaints, children describe being deprived of edible food and potable water and held in freezing and unsanitary cells with inadequate bedding and no access to personal hygiene items. Children report being threatened with rape and death, being told to remove their clothing before they are subjected to questioning, and being touched inappropriately by CBP officials.”

“Children’s complaints of abuse have been ignored and mishandled, allowing CBP officials to act with impunity. DHS does not appear to have reported alleged child abuse out to the FBI. The records provide no indication that DHS has taken any remedial or disciplinary measures to hold any individual accountable for these abuses.”

One Pager: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kx3zey3b6s5hmbu/CBP_1-Pager_final.pdf?dl=0

Full Report:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lplnnufjbwci0xn/CBP%20Report%20ACLU_IHRC%205.23%20FINAL.pdf?dl=0

Social Terror, Social Manipulation

“Every time Trump says “MS-13,” he wants you to think “Latino.” He wants you to think “immigrant.”Then he wants you to think back to “criminal.” Then he SAYS the word “animal,” until, in your mind, criminal-immigrant-animal become like one word. One idea.Folks, this is obvious.” ~Drew Dellinger

What to do?

Do your own research, be an informed consumer of media — Look at the dates of articles that you read and share. Read the whole article before sharing it. Click on the links to the sources that the article references. If there aren’t any sources, question it. If the links are broken, question it. If it’s an old article, investigate more to see if it is current. Realize that this issue is not new. The new aspect is the current administration’s policy to separate families at the border, causing more trauma and terror. However, misconduct, high numbers of deportations, and such was a problem during the Obama administration also. We as a country face many humanitarian crises that are getting worse with the current administration, but are not new. Catch up if you are not aware of this.

Take action (contact legislature) and raise awareness about the separation of children from their families at the border. (Do NOT focus on the missing children. While best beauroctratic practices are to keep track of people, we do not want the current enforcement agencies to be tracking down these missing children as many are likely intentionally hiding from the authorities. And the methods being used to track them down are perpetuating terror and discriminatory deportation.) Focus on the fact that children, very young children, are being separated from their parents when there is no reason that threatens the well-being of the child. This causes extreme trauma to these young children. Tell the representatives to intervene to insure that these people have legal rights, that they are allowed bond while they move through the court system, that they are not locked up in detention centers for indefinite amounts of time.

Contact U.S Congressman Mark Meadows and Senator Thom Tillis — express your concern about the national policies for separating children from their families. You can also make a local ask that they pressure ICE to allow the people from Buncombe and Henderson County to be allowed out of the detention centers on bond. Don’t make them stay locked up as they wait for trial, allow them be released on bond.

If you are a business owner or work for a business, sign this petition. These legislatures consider themselves pro-business and thus are more likely to listen to the demands of business owners. Petition (source CIMA and Ami Worthen)

Ruby Sales is organizing caravans across America that will start out in different cities of America and will end up at a designated space. If you are moved to stand, please email me at info@ spirithouseproject.org or call 718 601 0235 — “We can no longer remain silent or we become collaborators in a new system of captivity, sexual violations, psychological terror and deliberate acts by ICE to separate them from their parents. These White travesties echo acts by White Americans during enslavement when they captured Black children and sold them from their families. Now once again the evil that bred these actions during enslavement never died and lives today in the pathology of White supremacy.I woke up this morning knowing that we cannot remain silent as this government presides over and engineers a predatory system that separates Black and Brown immigrant children at the border from their families even selling them into the hands of White sex traffickers!”

Support charities and organizations dedicated to helping children – The Young Center for Immigrant and Children’s Rights focuses on the rights, safety, and best interests of unaccompanied immigrant children. United We Dream is the first and largest immigrant youth-led organization in the country. KIND: Kids in Need of Defense is effective in supporting children’s protection and upholding their right to due process and fundamental fairness. The Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project supports detailed adults and unaccompanied children who have been detained in Arizona, often illegally. Asylum Advocacy works to prevent the deportation of refugees fleeing violence and war, who have come here seeking legal asylum, provides emergency legal services, and a lot more. Lutheran Immigration Services has been helping resettle refugees and reunite families since 1939. The UN Refugees Agency isn’t specific to US refugee and immigrant issues, but they support victims fleeing from conflict in myriad ways. (h/t Amanda Litman on Twitter who continues to share a crowdsourced list of organizations that are helping.) The National Immigrant Justice Association of the Heartland Alliance ensures human rights protections and access to justice, including legal services, for all immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

]]>http://easilyamazed.com/2018/what-is-happening-to-children-at-the-border-and-in-the-hands-of-ice-agents/feed/0Police Brutality in Ashevillehttp://easilyamazed.com/2018/police-brutality-in-asheville/
http://easilyamazed.com/2018/police-brutality-in-asheville/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 13:54:27 +0000http://easilyamazed.com/?p=2364In case you’re not following this local incident of police brutality, abuse of power, and racial profiling by the Asheville Police Department, here’s an update from my perspective. And please follow this story, as this is the horrid underbelly that is alive and thriving in Asheville. You can find this information yourself in City of Asheville blog, APD twitter account, Asheville Citizen-Times, WLOS, and New York Times, WashingtonPost articles, and facebook posts. Please correct me if any of this is wrong.

The local DA and police department are swiftly acting to investigate who “leaked” the police body cam video, in order to charge that person as it is illegal in the state of NC for body cam video to be viewed by the public. This is much swifter action than appears to have been taken to investigate the beating, based on the timeline that APD released.

National news sources have picked up and are reporting on the incident.

There is evidence that the FBI was involved in investigating the case, but unclear if they still are.

The police chief, mayor, and vice mayor met with the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance and the Baptist Ministers Union where pastors expressed their concern.

City Council is holding a special meeting, closed session, on Monday to discuss the release of additional information related to a former APD officer’s use of force.

The Citizens/Police Advisory Committee (CPAC), a group that serves as a liaison between the police department and community, will have their monthly meeting on March 7, 2018, at 6:00 p.m. in the classroom at the Dr. Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Center located at 285 Livingston St, Asheville, NC. Normally the police chief attends these meetings. She was not scheduled to attend this one as it was supposed to be a community meeting with no police. There have been requests for her to be there as this is the ONLY institutional way for the public to communicate with the chief. There is no word on if she will attend.

Black organizers are hosting a community engagement meeting for mainly the black community to identify what actions to take moving forward.

The police chief has issued an apology (a couple of days ago, not when the incident happened in August) and many folks who are new to paying attention to APD’s leadership and communication styles feel encouraged that she is admitting the mistake. She is not addressing the many other concerns around this incident.

The officer who violently used excessive force resigned from APD almost 5 months after the incident. It does not appear that charges were brought against him. It does not appear that he is being held accountable for his brutality and abuse of power. I’ve not heard anybody find if he’s gotten a job at another police department yet.

The Asheville Police Captain Stony Gonce is on paid, investigative suspension. It is unclear if this is related to the police brutality incident or not.

It seems that the other officer on the scene who watched and permitted this to happen has not had any disciplinary action against him.

“I jay walk this intersection all the time. It’s terribly designed. It’s very hard to cross because of the poorly designed crosswalks. I have done it at least once when a cop car went by. I was never stopped let alone harassed, arrested and assaulted. Arresting a black man for trespassing and jay walking is some messed up Jim Crow nonsense.”
~ Cindy Conway, white woman

Around the world, including in the US, North Carolina and even Asheville, activists are harmed, harassed, murdered, incarcerated, or wrongly convicted for standing up for the rights of the people and the land — they are criminalized for speaking out for justice and exercising their fundamental rights to free expression and assembly.

Knowing this threat, people continue to risk their lives to protect their people, the earth, and the well being of future generations. These are people who are deeply devoted to the common good and the well-being of people living now and in the future. These are not folks who want to look like they are committed to a better world, but people whose actions and lives reflect their actual devotion.

Today I am praying to those who are now ancestors to guide and protect those who are still alive and are walking this path today. I am praying that more of us will release from the fog of denial, open our eyes to the fact that so many rights are being threatened all around the world and in our own neighborhoods, and find concrete and courageous ways that we can join the struggle to stand for freedom for all.

2 years ago today, Berta Cáceres, a Lenca organizer, activist and leader in Honduras, was assassinated in her home. From 2010-2017 in Honduras, 124 environmental activists were assassinated for their grassroots efforts to defend indigenous rights and the environment, fighting against the Honduran oligarchy and international corporations that are stealing and trying to steal indigenous land to build dams, gated communities, refineries and more. The activists standing up to these government and corporate powers are fighting against the increase in militarism and military spending as education and health go unattended to (sound familiar) and the earth is extracted for profit. They are standing up against patriarchy, homophobia, the stealing of land, and discrimination against indigenous people. They are defending the rivers. These indigenous communities are fighting for the future.

The military force and brutal repression being used against them is funded by US taxpayer dollars, and US companies are profiting from it.

The below video is a beautiful and informative window into this situation in Honduras and a mirror for situations all over the world. These indigenous people are calling on us all to build societies that are able to coexist in a way that is fair, dignified and for life. These are examples of alliances of people coming together to defend rights. “The people united will never be defeated.” Their resistance includes songs, theater, drums, and community.

The question for me these days is not so much “what can I do?” But, more so, who are the people that are with me, sincerely devoted to taking action together for the rights of all people, the well-being of current and future generations? There are many different roles we can play, there is so much to do, not acting is not an option for me.

In honor of the 2 year anniversary of Berta’s assassination, please consider a quick phone call to your House representative asking them to sign the Berta Cáceres Act. Details below.

The bill states: “The Honduran police are widely established to be deeply corrupt and to commit human rights abuses, including torture, rape, illegal detention, and murder, with impunity” and that the military has committed violations of human rights. Therefore, the bill asks that the United States suspend all “…security assistance to Honduran military and police until such time as human rights violations by Honduran state security forces cease and their perpetrators are brought to justice.”

Note, two of the accused murderers are former Honduran soldiers trained by the United States in Ft. Benning, Georgia, home of the School of the Americas

Please call your Representative NOW and ask to speak to his/her Foreign Policy Aide! Because the bill has been re-introduced, all of the bill’s co-sponsors will need to co-sponsor again! If your representative has not yet signed, call them and ask them to add their support as a sponsor of the bill!

Script:

“My name is _____. I’m a constituent from (your town/city) in (your state), and I’m calling to ask Rep. _____ to co-sponsor H.R. 1299, The Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, calling for a suspension of U.S. security aid to Honduras until human rights violations committed by the Honduran security forces cease. Has Rep. _______ seen this bill? Can I count on him/her to sign on? Please call me this week at (your phone number) to let me know if you have seen the letter, and if Rep. _____ will sign it.”

]]>http://easilyamazed.com/2018/people-are-murdered-and-criminalized-for-speaking-out-for-justice/feed/0Attend City Council Meetingshttp://easilyamazed.com/2018/attend-city-council-meetings/
http://easilyamazed.com/2018/attend-city-council-meetings/#respondTue, 23 Jan 2018 16:50:33 +0000http://easilyamazed.com/?p=2342“What can I do?”

Go to a City Council meeting if you haven’t. Learn what decisions our representatives are making. See how the process works for speaking and letting your voice be heard. And then let your voice influence the direction of this city. Hold our city leadership accountable.

Asheville City Council meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month at 5 p.m. The agenda is released the Friday before. Take time to read the City Council Agenda. See what decisions our city is making. Let them know what you care about. For instance — as I read today I see that the architect firm that is being hired for a $188,000 contract to redesign the ART Transit Station is not local. I think we should be putting more pressure on the council and city manager to be hiring contractors and consultants from Asheville. There is also a resolution to establish a Homeless Initiative Advisory Committee. I wonder if our people who are living and working on the streets are supportive of this initiative.

]]>http://easilyamazed.com/2018/attend-city-council-meetings/feed/0If Change is Why You March…http://easilyamazed.com/2018/if-change-is-why-you-march/
http://easilyamazed.com/2018/if-change-is-why-you-march/#respondSun, 21 Jan 2018 20:35:49 +0000http://easilyamazed.com/?p=2224Some people marched yesterday.
Marching at a Womens March illustrated numbers and allows people to feel the presence of other bodies standing up at this tim. It’s a chance to sing, chant and learn from each other, be in conversation about what is important. As my brother said, yesterday’s march was the “easy public place” to vocalize resistance or vocalize what you believe in. It was also a day for many people to be recharged and revitalized in a time when it is essential that as many of us as possible have the energy and motivation to keep acting so things will change for those who are most vulnerable at this time. If you marched, I hope it nourished and motivated you in some way that helps you stay engaged.

Some people did not march yesterday.
Some are not able to march. Some did not feel included in the purpose of the march. Some did not feel a clear purpose behind the march. Some are standing and resisting in other ways all the time and did not feel the need to march. Some saw this as an opportunity to hold people in positions of power accountable and educate about the ways officials are using their power. Some did not feel safe at the march.

I believe that the majority of Americans are unpracticed in how to stand up to the state, corporate, and institutional powers that control and govern our society. More of us continue to wake up every day, feeling the churning in our gut, the fire in our heart that says, “Things aren’t right. You have to be a part of changing things. You have a role to play in creating a future that you dream of. You are part of the solution to stop the horrors that many are facing right now.” Fortunately, elder organizers remind us that civic engagement is a skill that gets better with practice.

I am beyond grateful that we are hearing the calls. I pray that we will take risks, be bold, and turn towards one another to learn from each other about how to move forward in response to this call. I emphatically believe that the answers emerge from:

listening deeply to the inner voices of divine guidance

listening intently and responding to the guidance from those who are most impacted by the injustice, discrimination and inequity

working together

If you are feeling uncomfortable with the diverse perspectives around the march and how to make change, if you’re feeling uncertain about what is the “right” thing to do — GOOD. If we are not practiced in standing up for what is right, it is valuable for us to feel unsettled as we step into this territory. The habits and patterns and behaviors that have allowed us to get to this point require undoing. We need to be disoriented and unsettled so that we can connect to the solid ground of our values, be vulnerable in unfamiliar territory, and allow the fire-to-act to grow stronger within us. The more we unsettle our old ways of being, the clearer we will get. That means unsettling feelings of righteousness as well. Then we can genuinely recognize when we take steps forward that influence growing the world we dream of. A better future requires our participation now in order for it to come to life.

Thank you Chris Corrigan, for inviting me into the power of the word/practice of unsettling.